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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786071">all roads, they lead me here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismetrying/pseuds/thisismetrying'>thisismetrying</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Queen's Gambit (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Mild Smut, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:48:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786071</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismetrying/pseuds/thisismetrying</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You go your way,” he says.</p><p>Beth nods. “And I’ll go mine.” </p><p>It turns out that their ways are very similar.</p><p>-</p><p>Sometimes, you have to go your own way. And sometimes, that way keeps bringing you back to the same person over and over. </p><p>-</p><p>or Beth and Benny throughout their lives</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beth Harmon/Benny Watts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Beth and Benny (The Queen's Gambit)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all roads, they lead me here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>These two live rent free in my head. Also, this was supposed to be like 2,000 words, sorry.</p><p>Song title from "The Last Time" by Taylor Swift </p><p>Some songs to listen to while reading this:<br/>1. "the 1" by Taylor Swift<br/>2. "Comeback" by Carly Rae Jepson (feat. Bleachers)<br/>3. "ribs" by Lorde<br/>4. "tis the damn season" by Taylor Swift<br/>5. "The Louvre" by Lorde<br/>6. "You are in Love" by Taylor Swift<br/>7. "Always" by Gavin James<br/>8. "Never Say Never" by the Fray</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What do we do now?” Beth asks.</p><p>Beth had showed up at Benny’s door, suitcases from Moscow in tow, white coat slightly wrinkled from the long plane ride, still high off her win against Borgov.</p><p>The sex had been a flurry of ripped clothing, grasping hands, unsaid words, pent-up tensions.  Now they lay on Benny’s shitty mattress, panting in the afterglow.  </p><p>Benny turns on his side to face her. Her face is relaxed, calm, almost happy. He’s careful not to make the same mistakes as last time. He was young and stupid then, he thinks. He won’t be so young and stupid again.</p><p>“We celebrate.” And he kisses her.  </p><p>-</p><p>As it turns out, celebrating is pretty damn fun. It’s a flurry of press interviews, talk shows, getting to try on glamorous clothes for photo shoots, getting to talk and play chess, and getting paid for it. And through it all, Benny is there, by her side or lurking in the lobbies with his (very conspicuous) cowboy hat and trench coat.</p><p>The celebrating afterward in private hotel rooms is pretty fun too, Beth thinks.</p><p>Benny thinks so too.</p><p>-</p><p>The bubble lasts for two months. Two months of traveling and touring until it dies down, and now Beth is supposed to set her sights on the World Championship title.</p><p>Benny wants her to come to New York. He’s a city boy, through and through.</p><p>But Lexington is Beth’s home, the only home she’s ever known, and she’s not willing to give it up.</p><p>Benny doesn’t get it. “What do they have in goddamn <em>Kentucky</em> that they don’t have in New York?” he asks.</p><p>“It’s not <em>Kentucky,</em>” Beth says, exasperated. “It’s just that it’s home.” She can’t quite explain it, but even if she could, she doesn’t owe an explanation to anyone. Especially not Benny, she thinks, who lives in a cement hovel.</p><p>Benny rolls his eyes. He can’t believe he’s getting left again, that she’s not coming back again. He doesn’t know if he’s more insulted that the past few weeks haven’t meant more to her, or worried that her training will take a hit if they can only train over the phone.</p><p>“Whatever,” he growls. “Go back to the fucking sticks.”</p><p>She does.</p><p>-</p><p>But she also comes back.</p><p>They’re both stubborn people and they’d both refused to call each other for two weeks. Finally, Beth relents, and she guesses it’s her turn, since he did call her in Moscow, and she does need to start training for the championship, anyway. Playing against Harry and Townes in Lexington is fun and it’s nice to see them but they’re not really much of a challenge and neither of them have much experience in playing against grandmasters. Not like Benny does.</p><p>It’s awkward at first, static filling the line, and there are times Beth wants to just slam down the phone and go pour herself a stiff drink, but she refrains.</p><p>On the other end, Benny doesn’t know whether he wants to jump in his beetle and drive straight to Kentucky and throttle her or kiss her, or maybe both.</p><p>In the end, they agree that Beth will come up to New York once every two months to train in-person for two weeks, and the rest of the time, they’ll train over the phone.</p><p>-</p><p>Their phone bills rack up, but neither seem to mind much. Beth orders all the chess books she can, and the ones that are out-of-print or out of stock, Benny sends to her from his collection (the one thing he does have in abundance in that apartment of his).</p><p>They play over the phone and then go back and analyze, analyze, analyze, looking for holes, looking for openings.</p><p>The flaws in Beth’s games get harder and harder to find.</p><p>-</p><p>It’s springtime when she comes back to New York.</p><p>The training goes swimmingly, although by the end of it, Benny has doubts (that he’d never voice aloud) of whether he really has anything left to teach her.</p><p>But between the company and the sex, Beth doesn’t seem to mind much.</p><p>At the end of two weeks, before Beth boards her plane back to Kentucky, when he’s dropping her off  at the airport, he idles the car for a minute and looks at her. She’s gorgeous, in a smart traveling suit and her cheeks still bearing a rosy flush from a last minute tryst against the wall of his apartment.</p><p>He swallows and takes the plunge. “I’ll miss you.”</p><p>She looks at him then, and nods.</p><p>He gets out of the car and helps her with her suitcases. And when he’s about to drive away (he’s been idling in a no parking zone), she whips around, her red hair wildly fanning her face.</p><p>“I’ll miss you too, Benny.”</p><p>-</p><p>Life in Lexington is good, if a little boring. It’s nowhere near as exciting as the city, with its bright lights and interesting people, but it is home and Beth’s glad to be there. Glad to have Jolene and Harry and Townes and Matt and Mike near her.</p><p>She keeps up the house and when she goes grocery shopping, she crosses the street so she doesn’t have to pass the liquor store.</p><p>She studies. She may have beat Borgov in Moscow, but she knows the World Championship will be harder. It’ll be <em>twenty-four</em> games against Borgov and she’ll have to play black in half of those. She needs to be prepared.</p><p>She talks to Benny daily, going over games and analysis and openings and middlegames and endgames. Sometimes, they’ll eat dinner together over the phone. Their phone calls are usually precise, focused, eyes on the prize. But sometimes, when their conversation has run well into the evening, one of them will bring up an anecdote about some tournament or invitational, and the conversation will segue into something else.</p><p>One time, to her surprise, Beth finds herself telling Benny about Metheun and Mr. Shaibel. He knows about Mr. Shaibel of course, everyone who’s read the <em>Times</em> piece about her game in Moscow does, but she talks about how he trained her, how annoying she must have been. How he sent her the ten dollars and she’d never paid him back. How his funeral was one of the worst days of her life.</p><p>Benny tells her about traveling the world at such a young age and how, even though he’d been to all these places before he was fifteen years old, he hadn’t really <em>seen </em>them until he’d started traveling on his own. He’d always been confined to the hotel room, told to watch tv or study. He’d chosen studying, of course.</p><p>The phone calls aren’t a warm person beside you, but they are something, and they both settle into the awkward comfortability of it all.</p><p>-</p><p>Beth flies to New York again at the beginning of summer. It’s hot and sticky and they don’t help the temperature situation with their overenthusiastic hellos.</p><p>After they’ve reacquainted themselves with each other’s bodies, they get down to work. This time, Benny tags in Arthur and Hilton, and they all find themselves learning more and more.</p><p>They go out more this time, too. Arthur and Hilton are chess nerds, sure, and one of them is a grandmaster, but they also know how to have a good time. They take Beth to seedy nightclubs and hole-in-the-wall restaurants and even though she doesn’t drink anymore, she finds herself elated at the lights, the smells, the atmosphere.</p><p>Beth starts to understand a little more why Benny likes New York so much.</p><p>-</p><p>“You know,” Beth says over the phone, twirling the cord around her finger. “You could come to Lexington.”</p><p>“What’s there in Lexington?” Benny asks. “I thought you liked New York, anyway.”</p><p>“I do.” She sighs. It’s not about New York or Lexington, it’s about them. But she’d never voice that.</p><p>“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”</p><p>-</p><p>The next trip to New York, Beth wants to revisit the nightclubs and restaurants and find even more. If she’s going to be in New York, she might as well make the most of it.</p><p>Benny wants to stay in and study. The championship is months away still, but he knows that Borgov is probably training his ass off, and Beth should be doing the same. Even if they don’t end up studying, he really just wants a quiet night in with Beth.</p><p>“Let’s stay in, tonight,” he suggests.</p><p>“I want to go to that Mexican place we went to last time,” she says.</p><p>“There’ll be other times. You should really study.”</p><p>Beth gives him a knowing look. “Yeah, right. Like we’ll end up studying.”</p><p>She continues, “You just don’t want to go out, and you want me to do what you do.”</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“You were the one who wanted me to come New York,” she points out. “Who always tells me about how great New York is. And now that I’m finally really enjoying it, you want me to stay in?”</p><p>She doesn’t even really care that much about going out, but it’s the principle of the matter. She is her own person and Benny Watts isn’t going to dictate what she’s going to do.</p><p>Benny turns away. He wanted Beth to love New York, thought it might convince her to move here. But now it only seems that it’s taking her away from him.</p><p>-</p><p>Beth goes out alone with Arthur and Hilton.</p><p>Benny sits and stews and smokes for a bit before throwing his trench coat on and going to join them.</p><p>When he gets to the bar, tucked between a smoke shop and an abandoned, decrepit building, the only familiar faces he sees at the crowded bar are Levertov and Wexler. There’s no sign of Beth’s coat or purse either.</p><p>He walks up to them, trying to be casual. “Where’s Beth?” he ask. His heart is pounding a little more frantically than he would like.</p><p>“Went home early,” Wexler replies before turning back to his beer. “Wasn’t feeling it.”</p><p>He wants to curse both of them for letting her walk home alone in the city and curse her too. <em>Idiots, </em>he thinks. He practically runs back to his little apartment, where he finds Beth leaning against the cool concrete outside his door.</p><p>“You should have called,” he says, getting his keys out.</p><p>She can tell that he’s angry and annoyed, but she’s angry and annoyed too. She couldn’t have fun at the club, knowing Benny was here, home alone and angry and annoyed and that she’d left him on a sour note. “Why?” she taunts.</p><p>“It’s not safe,” he says.</p><p>“Where were you?” she asks. She’d become even more annoyed when she’d returned and found he wasn’t home.</p><p>“Where do you think?” he grits out.</p><p>“You went to the bar,” she says.</p><p>He nods.</p><p>Their lovemaking that night is both an apology and a reminder. They are a little more gentle with each other than usual, a little more careful, a little more wary.  </p><p>-</p><p>They’re having dinner together at a quiet little Italian restaurant the night before Beth is due to leave back to Kentucky.</p><p>“It doesn’t feel right,” she says, quietly.</p><p>He can tell by her face that she doesn’t take relish in saying it; that this is not a win, this is not a draw, it is a loss.</p><p>He nods. “No, it doesn’t.” Maybe they just aren’t cut out for the distance, aren’t cut out for each other, aren’t cut out for <em>whatever this is. </em> </p><p>They both know what she means, even if they can’t quite put words to it.</p><p>“So, what do we do now?” Beth asks. She looks up at him with her brown eyes, and if he swears he sees a glimmer of a tear in them. And because they are mirrors of each other, he’s certain that his face reflects the same.</p><p>“You go your way,” he says.</p><p>Beth nods. “And I’ll go mine.”</p><p>-</p><p>It turns out that their ways are very similar.</p><p>If anything, with tournament season starting up, they see each other in person even more.</p><p>It’s awkward, the first few times, full of stilted hellos and courteous nods and quick glances when they think the other isn’t looking.</p><p>But eventually, they fall into a rhythm. Eventually, they are able to say hello to each other while looking each other in the eye.</p><p>There are quite a few Harmon v. Watts finals that year.</p><p>-</p><p>One time, after a draw, they fuck in the closest hotel bathroom they can find.</p><p>“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Benny pants against her neck.</p><p>Beth claws at his back. “No, we really shouldn’t.”</p><p>They do anyway.</p><p>-</p><p>-</p><p>“If we’re just keeping this up still, I might as well be your trainer again,” Benny says.</p><p>He has a point, Beth thinks, as he sinks into her. This is the fourth or fifth time they’ve fucked after a match, and they <em>really</em> should stop.</p><p>“Okay,” she says.</p><p>-</p><p>They resume the training.</p><p>It’s easy enough, with all the tournaments and invitationals they’re both at, to train in-person. No trips to New York or Lexington necessary. And there’s always the phone.</p><p>After a particularly tough game between them, the interviewer covering the game asks to interview both of them.</p><p>At first, the questions are run-of-the-mill, so normal they’re almost boring. Then the reporter starts making <em>insinuations, </em>and Beth turns red. She’s not sure out of embarrassment or anger.</p><p>“I’m the best chess player in the world,” she says. “And all you can think to ask me about is my love life? Who cares if I’m fucking Benny Watts? Or the bell hop?” she says, wildly, pointing at a random hotel employee. “Or Vasily Borgov himself?” She stands up, ready to end the interview. “What you should be writing about is how I just beat all these men.”</p><p>And she walks off.</p><p>-</p><p>They’re in bed together later that night when she speaks.</p><p>“He does have a point,” she sighs, hating to admit it.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Yeah?” Benny asks, slowing his thrusts. “Who?”</p><p>“The reporter,” Beth says. “He is an ass and he had no right to ask those questions.”</p><p>“Agreed,” Benny says, leaning down to kiss her neck.</p><p>Beth moans. “But…we should…” <em>God, why is it so hard to think when she’s with Benny?</em></p><p>Benny pauses, pulling away to look down at her.</p><p>She clarifies. “If I’m going to continue to train with you,” she says, adjusting herself so she’s further on him. “We should keep things professional.”</p><p>He frowns.</p><p>“To keep things from how they went last time,” she says.</p><p><em>What did happen last time?</em> He thinks. For all the sleepless nights he spends replaying it, analyzing it, he still can’t quite figure it out.</p><p>“And to focus,” she adds.</p><p>“Okay,” he says, and he starts to withdraw. If she wants <em>professional, </em>he can give her professional.</p><p>She immediately misses the feel of him. She wraps her legs around him tighter. “Starting after today,” she amends.</p><p>-</p><p>This time, when they return to their respective corners and resume training over the phone, they stick to their word. There is none of the intimacy of the late night phone calls, no straying remarks. If their calls were mostly precise before, now they are perfunctory, focusing solely on game analysis.</p><p>But there is always the lingering question in the air.</p><p>-</p><p>The World Championship is in Oslo that year. Beth’s head is spinning. <em>It’s all come down to this, </em>she thinks. She hasn’t felt this unnerved in a long time. Maybe since Moscow.</p><p>Still, some of the nerves are dissipated by Benny, who is there as her second this time.</p><p>She has to hand it to him, he’s been a great second so far, taking care of all the drudgery of airport lines and calling cabs and checking them into the hotel.</p><p>At the hotel (which is really lovely, something Alma would have loved), she waits on one of the plush couches while Benny checks them in.</p><p>He returns with a grimace on his face.</p><p>“It seems that something with the reservation got mixed up,” he says apologetically.</p><p>She motions for him to continue.</p><p>“They only have one room down on the reservation,” he says. He pulls a deep breath in. “And, they’re all booked up for the night.”</p><p>She lets out a frustrated sigh. This certainly isn’t ideal, but they’ll manage. It’s not like her and Benny haven’t shared space before. Though maybe that’s exactly why he looks so hesitant…</p><p>“I can find another hotel for me,” he starts.</p><p>Beth quickly shakes her head. No matter if they’ve left things unsaid, no matter if things might be a little awkward, no matter if she can’t quite figure out what’s happened between them these past few years, she knows she needs Benny here, by her side.</p><p>“No,” she says quickly. “We’ll manage.”</p><p>He nods. “I’ll take the couch.”</p><p>-</p><p>Beth wins. Beth smiles the widest she’s ever smiled and Benny is beaming with pride.  </p><p>She is the best there is.</p><p>-</p><p>The hotel staff greets them congratulates Beth, fawning over her and asking her to sign bits and pieces of paper.</p><p>It also turns out they’ve fixed the hotel reservation, and they now have a separate room available, free of charge.</p><p>-</p><p>After the celebrations, after the dinner and shaking hands, and the award ceremony, they linger in the hallway.</p><p>The replacement room is directly across from Beth’s room, where they spent the last few nights, sleeping, not touching, wondering.</p><p>They both begin to speak.</p><p>“We—”</p><p>“Cong—”</p><p>They both stop.</p><p>Benny clears his throat. “Congratulations. Again.” He scratches the back of his neck. “You’re the best there is.”</p><p>Beth smiles at him. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”</p><p>“Yeah, you could have.”</p><p>She smiles again, wider. “Yeah, maybe I could have.” She pauses. “But I’m glad I didn’t have to.”</p><p>They let the silence fall over them again, both their hands on their door knobs.</p><p>“Well, good night.”</p><p>“Night.”</p><p>-</p><p>Beth takes some time off after winning the championship. She hires a house sitter and goes off and sees the world. Takes the time to really see the sights, take things in. Do things she never had the time to do when she was playing in invitationals and tournaments, hustling, making sure she stayed ahead.</p><p>She calls Benny every six months or so, and they catch up. Benny tells her all the latest chess world news, measures up the newcomers, fills her in on the ratings. Beth tells him about the places she’s seen, the chess masters she meets, the food she tries.</p><p>And even though there is always so, so much to talk about, between the new potential prodigy on the rise or the new wonder of the world Beth has seen, they eventually end up talking about the old times, about the days and weeks spent training in Benny’s little apartment, about the matches they’ve played.</p><p>It’s like being home without being home.</p><p>-</p><p>Beth Harmon’s return to the chess world after five years off is met with an equal amount of enthusiasm and doubt.</p><p>She goes to the U.S. Open in Vegas as her first match back, determined to silence any doubts about whether she’s still got it or not.</p><p>She does.</p><p>Benny Watts is not present that year.</p><p>-</p><p>“So, you’re back?”</p><p>The phone at her place in Lexington has sat unused for so long, but hearing Benny’s voice through the receiver feels all too familiar.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says. She hadn’t told him. She doesn’t know why. When she’d made the decision to start back up again, Benny had been the first person she’d wanted to call. But she hadn’t. She doesn’t try to hazard a guess as to why.</p><p>“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” Benny says.</p><p>And she knows they will. They don’t need to make plans to see each other, because they’ll see each other when they see each other, at whatever tournament or invitational they’re both at next.</p><p>Knowing them, it won’t be too long.</p><p>-</p><p>And so it goes.</p><p>There is chess, and there is fucking, and there is more chess, and there are tournaments and invitationals, and there are late night smokes on hotel rooftops, and there are months without phone calls, and then conversations that go deep into the night and make it feel like they saw each other just yesterday.</p><p>And there are changes. Chess rises and falls in popularity and the money follows the path. The places get a little fancier, and then dingier, and then fancier again.</p><p>-</p><p>Two years later, and countless matches and conversations and dinners later, Beth appears at a tournament with a ring on her fourth finger. Benny can’t keep his damn eyes off of it, making a crucial mistake that he’d expect out of a rookie.</p><p>But Benny doesn’t ask and Beth doesn’t tell.</p><p>-</p><p>At the next tournament they see each other at, the ring is gone.</p><p>“Just didn’t feel right,” she says, seemingly out of the blue, one night, as they’re finishing up dinner.</p><p>Benny raises his eyebrows. They’d never talked about her engagement, though he’d heard it through the chess gossip grapevine (which is surprisingly robust).</p><p>He never asked, and she doesn’t owe him anything, but she tells him anyway.</p><p>“It never feels right.”</p><p>-</p><p>She still visits New York sometimes, and she always sees Benny when she’s there.</p><p>The first few times, she stays in hotels, until Benny brings up the subject.</p><p>“It’s ridiculous for you to stay in hotels, Harmon,” he says over coffee and bagels in the park one time. They’ve grabbed one of those stone tables with a chessboard printed on it.</p><p>“Where else am I going to stay, Benny?” she asks him pointedly.</p><p>He shrugs, and for a moment, she’s reminded of a time in a bar in 1967, when he first asked her to come to New York. “You can stay at mine,” he says.</p><p>Her hand hovers over the pieces they’ve brought. She quirks an eyebrow at him.</p><p>“I’ve got a couch too, now,” he says. “A nice one, with a pull-out.”</p><p>She looks at him and he smiles that still boy-ish smile of hers.</p><p>“Okay,” she says.</p><p>-</p><p>Sometimes, when she visits, she’ll spend almost all of her time out of the apartment. Playing matches, shopping, visiting friends, going to her favorite eateries and cafes.</p><p>Other times, she stays holed up in Benny’s apartment, drinking strong coffee and staying up late, analyzing all the game pamphlets from the past few months. They’re both officially grandmasters by now, but still, it doesn’t hurt to stay sharp on the newest players and newest innovations in the field.</p><p>Sometimes Benny goes out with her, sometimes he doesn’t.</p><p>One night, she stumbles in, high off the night life (and maybe a little pot) and Benny is sitting there, in his floral robe, studying the latest Russian games.</p><p>She stands in the doorway, overwhelmed by the familiarity of it all, of seeing Benny sitting there in this concrete box in front of a chess set, and most of all, struck by the feeling of <em>coming home. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>She goes and kisses him, and he kisses her back, and it’s like they’re both drowning.</p><p>Afterward, when they’re lying in bed, he turns to her. She reaches out to touch his hair.</p><p>“What do we do now?”</p><p>“We celebrate?”</p><p>They both laugh.</p><p>“I mean, we’re both a little too old for this, aren’t we?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Maybe,”</p><p>Silence and long unanswered questions and lost matches fill the small space between them.</p><p>“You’re my best friend,”</p><p>“I know. We think the same way,”</p><p>“I don’t want to lose you,”</p><p>“We won’t lose each other.”</p><p>-</p><p>Benny retires from professional tournaments in 2005 at 61 years old. He hasn’t been the best for a long time, and while his rating remains steady, he just doesn’t find it as fun anymore.</p><p>He tried his hand at stocks for a few months, and he was always a gambler, so he took a gamble on this company called Apple, and hey, it worked out in his favor and now he doesn’t need to work another day in his life.</p><p>Still, he needs something to do with his life, so he continues with poker games and he does take up coaching for a little bit for rich parents who want their little darlings to become the best at chess, but he finds he can’t take it (doesn’t know why he ever thought he could) and quits that almost immediately.</p><p>He goes and travels a little, but finds that he still prefers New York to all else.</p><p>So he continues to play speed chess and friendly matches and still stops by tournaments every now and then, to catch up with old friends, as he always said.</p><p>Especially a certain red-head.</p><p>-</p><p>In 2009, Beth and Benny are both invited to a charity match on behalf of endangered elephants (or something like that, Beth never really reads the invitations too much, she just likes the chance to play).</p><p>But this match burns itself into her mind, because Benny Watts shows up and there’s an extra ring on his hand and there’s an extra person at his side of adoring fans (because, yes, Benny Watts can still hold court at any chess match just as well as he did in Cincinnati 1963).</p><p> When he sees Beth across the lobby, he waves her over.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Beth, this is Jenny,” he says, introducing them. “Jenny, this is Beth Harmon,”</p><p>“I’ve heard so much about you,” Jenny says and surprises Beth by giving her a hug. Over her shoulder, Benny gives a <em>what can I tell you </em>shrug and sheepish smile.</p><p>Something nasty stabs at Beth’s gut, but she shakes it off. She’s a grown woman, for Christ’s sake, she thinks. So she fakes a smile. “It’s so nice to meet you.”</p><p>-</p><p>They don’t have dinner together and catch up for hours like they usually do.  Instead, they go in big groups, where Benny introduces his fiancée to those gathered.</p><p>“You know,” Matt says, following Beth’s gaze to Benny and his pretty fiancé across the hotel lobby. “I always thought you two would end up together.”</p><p>Beth looks at Matt then. “Really?”</p><p>Matt nods.</p><p>“Even when I was engaged to Mike?”</p><p>“Especially then. That was during Mike’s punk phase. He wore a lot of too-skinny jeans then, and too much black, and if I remember, correctly he grew his hair out then too.”</p><p>“I remember,” Beth says and laughs. Laughs at both Mike’s attempt at looking punk and the fact that she was ever engaged to him.</p><p>He’s happily married to Annette Packer now and Beth couldn’t be happier for both of them. It’s the type of happiness she wishes she could conjure up for Benny now, but somehow, she can’t.</p><p>Matt looks back at Benny and Jenny, who are receiving congratulations from the plethora of chess friends Benny’s built up over the years.</p><p>“Do you think you’ll ever do it?” he asks.</p><p><em>Do what?</em> She thinks. <em>Get married?</em></p><p>Beth’s been engaged at least three times since Mike, but she never could go through with it. Commitment issues, she guesses.</p><p>Still, she doesn’t regret her choices. After the fourth time, she realized she wasn’t the marrying type and she’s quite glad she’s never tied the knot.</p><p>It doesn’t explain the knot that forms in her stomach when she looks at Benny and Jenny though.</p><p>-</p><p>In 2010, at the annual Chess Federation charity event for orphaned boys and girls, Beth surveys the room. She basically bullied the federation into hosting it, dangling her reputation and all the press she could get chess in front of them. They’d quickly caved. She notes with satisfaction that there is a line of orphans who each get to receive their own chess set.</p><p>She also notes that Benny came alone this time.</p><p>“Why, hello, Beth,” he says as he walks alongside her. He still wears that ridiculous cowboy hat and the leather duster she’s absolutely sure he’s had for at least thirty years at this point. He’s got to have paid more in repairs for the thing than it would be to just ditch it and buy a new genuine leather coat at this point.</p><p>Still, she smiles at the sight. “Why, hello, Benny,” she says.</p><p>She looks down at his finger. His usual rings are still there, sans one gold band on his ring finger.</p><p>“Skittles tonight?” she asks.</p><p>“You bet.”</p><p>-</p><p>Beth continues playing until she’s 64. By this time, she is In that time, it’s 2012 and she’s only lost a handful of games in her career. But she is getting tired of the monotony, getting tired of being on top (she’d reclaimed her World Champion title shortly after her five-year hiatus when she was 21 and has kept it ever since then), getting tired of there being no real competition.</p><p>But really, she is simply getting tired. Chess has been her life, and she loves it, will always love, it but lately, she wonders if there’s more to life than chess.</p><p>The world has changed so much since she first started playing. Now there are computer games of chess and smartphones and AI that people claim can beat her. (She’s tested it out, 99 times out of 100, she still wins).</p><p>It’s time.</p><p>-</p><p>Beth and Benny meet for coffee after she officially retires, and he congratulates her, jokes that she’s now officially joined the ranks of washed-up chess players. She swats at him.</p><p>He laughs and smiles at her. “What are you going to do now, Harmon?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she says.</p><p>“Beth Harmon, not knowing,” he says. “Well, that’s a first.”</p><p>She laughs, but inwardly, she thinks of all the times she didn’t know. Didn’t know with him.</p><p>“Actually, I think I’m going to travel.”</p><p>He nods. “I tried that myself, when I retired.”</p><p>“I haven’t done it since I was 25,” she states. “The world’s changed a lot since then.”</p><p>“That it has.”</p><p>She looks at his hands stirring his black coffee, a shadow cast from the brim of his cowboy hat. A lot of things have changed, she thinks, but some haven’t.</p><p>“Got a smoke?” he asks.</p><p>She shakes her head and smile. “Don’t you know those are bad for you?”</p><p>“Ahh, the new guidelines. Seems everyone’s concerned about health these days,” he scoffs.</p><p>“I remember you were quite concerned about my health, once upon a time.”</p><p>He smiles, an unreadable expression on his face beside it. “That was different.”</p><p>“I suppose it was.”</p><p>Impulsively, then, she grabs his hand.</p><p>“But we’re not, right?” she asks. “We’re still good?”<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“We’re still good, Harmon,” he says. “The greatest.”</p><p>-</p><p>It’s exhilarating, seeing the world, traveling.</p><p>Jolene joins her on a few stops on her travels, when she can get away with work. She’s now a fancy hot-shot lawyer with the ACLU, fighting the good fight.</p><p>Other than that, Beth travels alone, reveling in the freedom, in the unboundness of her life. Of not being confined to a trailer or an orphanage or even 64 squares on a chessboard.</p><p>A part of her never thought she’d get here, never thought she’d be <em>retired </em>from a long and illustrious career, getting to do whatever the hell she wants.</p><p>For a while, she thought she’d be dead by the time she was 28.</p><p>But she’s not.</p><p>And so she enjoys not being dead, enjoys being alive and free to do what she wants.</p><p>Still, there’s a small part of her that tugs at her heart, that whispers <em>freedom isn’t everything. </em></p><p>But she swallows down whatever regrets she has, because if there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that you can’t move backward, you can only move forward.</p><p>-</p><p>She texts him and emails him pictures of her, and sometimes, when she’s feeling especially nostalgic, she’ll send a postcard.</p><p>Benny’s not much for technology but he makes it a point to check his phone and his computer just for her.</p><p>He plays a lot of games online now, trying to test the limits of computers and AI and all that fancy stuff.</p><p>Sometimes, he wonders back to a conversation had on a sunny day on a quad on a college campus in 1967.</p><p>“Do you ever go over games in your head? When you’re alone, play all the way through them?”</p><p>“Doesn’t everybody?”</p><p>And now, there is no need to play alone, you can play against the computer, and you don’t have to have the board memorized, because you can just play on your computer.</p><p>Still, he does miss playing (certain) people sometimes.</p><p>-</p><p>A chess show appears on Netflix and renews interest in chess, and with it, her, the World Champion who held onto the title for so long. She’s asked for interviews and talk shows once more, as well as Youtube clips and Facebook lives.</p><p>She calls Benny up. He doesn’t pick up his cell phone, but he does pick up his landline.</p><p>“Did you see <em>The King’s Gambit</em>?”</p><p>“What’s that?” Benny asks.</p><p>“What, don’t they have Netflix in New York?”</p><p>He laughs good-naturedly at her joke, her callback. “What’s <em>The King’s Gambit, </em>Beth?”</p><p>“The show that’s put chess back on the map,” she answers. “Or so they say.”</p><p>Ever the realist, he says, “It’ll take a lot more than that to put chess back on the map.”</p><p>Beth rolls her eyes. “It’s a good show. Follows a young man on his journey to become a chess champion. Has a witty girl training him, too. I think she’s supposed to be me.”</p><p>Benny laughs at that and asks a few more questions.</p><p>She answers them. Then, “It reminds me of when we were young. Of us. Of the past.”</p><p>Benny gets quiet. “Seems like lots of things do that these days.”</p><p>She doesn’t disagree with him. She’d stopped traveling about a year ago, and now that she’s back in her home in Lexington, now that everyone’s predicting that history is repeating itself, she finds herself thinking back to the past an awful lot.</p><p>“They were good times, weren’t they?” It is half a statement, half a question.</p><p>“They were.”</p><p>-</p><p>“I’m moving,” he announces, on their next phone call.</p><p>“Really?” Beth asks, surprised. She’d thought he’d stay in New York forever. It’s 2020 and Beth is 71 years old and Benny is 75.</p><p>“Well, my apartment building has finally been sold and they’re knocking it down to build a skyscraper,”</p><p>Him and that stupid apartment, Beth thinks. It was remodeled, once, in the 90s, she remembers (remembers him complaining like hell about it), and they put the shower in the bathroom, like it should have been all along, and brought it up to the building codes of the time.</p><p>But that was almost 30 years ago.</p><p>She still can’t believe he continued to stay there (to be fair, he did finally get a couch, and it’s rather spacious for a New York apartment). And now he has to move.</p><p>Her house is still up. She’s still in the same place she was when she won her first tournament. She thinks how she paid a mere $7,000 for the house. Now, she can’t even add a new bathroom to the house for less than $7,000.</p><p>She has gone so far, and yet, she has returned here, landed here.</p><p>“Where are you moving to?” she asks.</p><p>“Not sure,” he says nonchalantly, casually. Like he hasn’t quite figured it out yet. And perhaps he hasn’t. For all that Benny is a careful thinker, there are some things that he’s always refused to spend too much time lingering on.</p><p>“When do you have to move out by?”</p><p>“Next week.”</p><p>She licks her lips. She’s been home for over a year now, and she’s sure she’s tired out all her nearby friends with her visits.</p><p>“Might go on a road trip,” he says. “Visit some old friends,”</p><p>“You could come to Kentucky,”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“That is, if you’d deign to come to the sticks,”</p><p>He laughs, and it is a rich, full laugh. He’d been hoping she’d say that.</p><p>“I’d love to, Harmon.”</p><p>-</p><p>He pulls up in front of her house. He still drives a stupid little beetle (though his original one is long gone). They’ve been friends for over 50 years now and this is the first time he’s been to her house.</p><p>She sees him out the window. It feels like an opening, a middlegame, and an endgame, all wrapped into one.</p><p>She opens the door. “Want to celebrate?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The word choice in the story isn't the best and it's kind of random but this came to me yesterday, so I hope y'all enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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